The Queen. Once booming, expanding, an epicenter of wealth, whose factories fueled the fires of progress. Carriages spinning their wheels upon paved parkways, moving forward with the assurance of prosperity. Assurance is a road, to be torn apart by the onset of winter frost.
The fall.

Waterways rerouted, crisis descending like ravenous vultures, gnawing and gnawing away. The fires died, never to be rekindled. Today, we live among remnants. A shattered vase, though crafted of the same porcelain, is composed of distinct shards.

*

I used to drive into South Buffalo with my maternal grandmother, Joy. It was a place sagging with age. Houses, once neatly maintained, had been condemned. Churches, once filled with ardent worshippers, were hollow, their pews dislodged, the benign faces of saints concealed by dust. Still, she returns, this place of her birth, this place of her life, which hovers at the center of her galaxy. I have heard the stories, the same stories, over and over again. Stories of neighbors calling to one another from crisp white porches, stories of virtuous relatives, long-interred six feet under. Stories of this woman, married to that man, who went to this church and lived two streets yonder. To be Irish in South Buffalo is to be of Puritan descent in New England. These people were the first settlers, and find tremendous pride in their heritage, often at the expense of those deemed "intruders."

I was always puzzled by my grandmother's steadfast grasp on this place. She had moved away nearly fifty years ago, to live in Williamsville, an idyllic suburb that had fallen from the sky as the last Boomers were born. Her body was there, but her heart was here, an irrevocable reality for which I judged her.

Though my mind should be harnessed by my will, I cannot be blamed for such notions. My mother had moved away from South Buffalo before she could utter a syllable. She had gone to Georgetown; to Law School…superiority sickens me. False superiority, that is. I choose to believe that value lies in moral fortitude, which the denizens of South Buffalo have in great measure. If I had lived there, among my extended family, surely I would harbor no such sentiments.

*

I was raised in Amherst, a locality much like Williamsville, in an enclave of Tudors. I went to school in the city, with children who lived on sprawling compounds in Orchard Park, in homes that reigned on tree-lined Middlesex, whose parents took them on trips to Nantucket.

My school lay just beyond Elmwood and Allentown, neighborhoods where the clopping of Birkenstocks reverberated against mural-clad walls, where women drank soy lattes and discussed the shortcomings of Third-Wave feminism.

Returning home, my mother would turn onto Hertel, past antique shops, and pungent sausages glistening in windows, and hookah bars, their signs etched with foreign calligraphy. We'd pass through University Heights, the comic book store to our left, the diner just ahead, whose pancakes came with vegan butter.

*

I'd visit my paternal grandparents in Cheektowaga, where people spent summers in screened garages and looked forward to church BINGO. My father's mother, Nor, with her coiffed hair, cameos, and high-heels seemed akin to a pearl among gravel. I held her in high esteem for this reason, though at times, I sensed arrows shot in her direction, originating from squat women in Bills regalia. She too was from South Buffalo, and it was the locale where her fondest memories had been given life. Nor would extol its decency, and exclaim that for a mere five cents, one could have a night of dancing. She recalled her Uncle Doc, whom she was sent to live with, for he and his two sons needed a "female presence," she'd say, a smile blooming on her visage. Despite her affections, Nor rarely returned. Her friends were dead, her family had long-since settled elsewhere.

*

"The City of Good Neighbors…" these words have no chime. Who is neighbor to whom? In Williamsville, through a barrier of tinted glass, I see Jewish men hiking to Friday services, on Hertel, Greeks reminiscing over red wine, in South Buffalo, women, dressed in black, laughing together, for as Joy claims, nothing warms the heart like an Irish funeral. From my home, just minutes from these places, I wonder if the aforementioned have ever shared a cup of sugar. I don't know, but I do feel the gales of Lake Erie, which come day and night, unceasingly.